Breathing new life into old photos since 2012.
I liked this picture so much that I put it on my first business card back in 2012. This is the Balmer family, circa 1898. The woman standing at right is Bertha, the subject of today’s episode of 52 Ancestors. She was my mother’s mother’s mother’s mother—my great-great-grandmother, that is—and she’s unmistakable. Continue reading
This week I bring you Cora Kline Harrison, my paternal grandmom’s paternal grandmom. that would be my great-great-grandmom I’ll tell you how my grandmom’s cousin, Doris, and I honed in on her birthday.
A questionable report.
The 1900 Census placed Cora’s birth date in February of 1878. Doris rejected this claim, and insisted instead that her grandmother was born on April 1, 1876, although she had no documents to prove the fact. I had inquired about baptism records at the Lancaster County Historical Society with little else to go on. The archivists there told me that many of the churches of that time and place were inconsistent with birth records, so I might have trouble finding a baptism record for Cora. I did not know the parish in which she was baptized. I did find a record of Cora’s birth among her father’s Civil War pension file, but the record was ambiguous. Continue reading
I don’t know a whole lot about my ancestor No. 12, but her image here is a great reminder of why I got into this business. It is the quintessential photo restoration project. I have exactly one picture of this woman, and guess what: It’s wrecked. Wrecked, but salvageable. A little digtial wizardry and voila! Virtually good as new!
Well, enough about me. Let’s get to our subject. Meet Angeline Scaletta, or Aunt Angel, as my grandmother called her (pronounced AHN-jel). She is standing at right in the above photo, next to my great-grandmother, Katherine (Balmer) Scaletti. She was the older sister to my great-grandfather, Antonino Rocco Scaletti. According to civil birth records, she was born in Trabia, Sicily, on April 15, 1884. That made her a full nine years older than Nino, who was born in 1893. Nino also had two older brothers: Giuseppe, aka Joseph, who was born in 1881, and Carmelo, aka Uncle Charly, who was born in 1890.
I haven’t yet planned out my year of ancestors. I might plan it, so as not to neglect some essential persons. (Who would be a non-essential person?) So far, I’ve chosen whom to write about week-by-week, and preference has gone to heroic people with great stories,for whom I have a picture suitable for restoration, and about whom, I suspect, most living people in family would not have known, but for my research. The trend continues this week, with one slight difference: This week’s ancestor is a hero of the everyday variety. I don’t expect to find her picture in the newspaper, or any recordings of her in the Library of Congress. No buildings bear her name. No gimmicks. No tricks. Don’t let any of that fool you. She’s a family hero. She is Anne Reibold. Continue reading
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